A tomographic imaging apparatus is provided for generating images. The tomographic apparatus includes a computer programmed to access a data sinogram representative of the image, reconstruct the image, divide the image into a plurality of sub-regions, define a region of interest including at least one sub-region, reprojecting a region of interest or a complement of the region of interest to generate a region of interest sinogram or a sinogram representative of the complement of the region of interest and reconstructing a resultant sinogram using iterative methods to generate an image.
Legal claims defining the scope of protection, as filed with the USPTO.
1. A method of generating an image comprising: accessing a data sinogram representative of the image; reconstructing the image; dividing the image into a plurality of sub-regions; defining a region of interest including at least one sub-region; reprojecting the complement of the region of interest to generate a sinogram representative of the complement of the region of interest; identifying an estimated representation of the region of interest; reprojecting the estimated representation of the region of interest to obtain an estimated sinogram; adding the estimated sinogram with the sinogram representative of the complement of the region of interest to obtain a resultant sinogram; comparing the resultant sinogram with the data sinogram to determine if a similarity threshold has been satisfied; and iteratively updating the estimated representation of the region of interest if the similarity threshold is not satisfied.
2. The method of claim 1 wherein, reconstructing the image comprises reconstructing the image using filtered backprojection.
3. The method of claim 2 , wherein iterations in the filtered backprojection are reduced by applying a boosting kernel.
4. The method of claim 1 wherein, the image is divided into N×M sub-regions.
5. The method of claim 1 wherein, the sub-regions comprise square or hexagonal shaped regions.
6. A tomographic imaging apparatus comprising: a computer programmed to: access a data sinogram representative of the image; reconstruct the image; divide the image into plurality of sub-regions; define a region of interest including at least one sub-region; reproject the complement of the region of interest to generate a sinogram representative of the complement of the region of interest; identify an estimated representation of the region of interest; reproject the estimated representation of the region of interest to obtain an estimated sinogram; add the estimated sinogram with the sinogram representative of the complement of the region of interest to obtain a resultant sinogram; compare the resultant sinogram with the data sinogram to determine if a similarity threshold has been satisfied; and iteratively update the estimated representation of region of interest if the similarity threshold is not satisfied; and a display for displaying the image.
7. The tomographic imaging apparatus of claim 6 , wherein the computer is programmed to divide the image into N×M sub-regions.
8. The tomographic imaging apparatus of claim 6 , wherein the computer is further programmed to divide the image into sub-regions comprising square or hexagonal shaped regions.
9. The tomographic imaging apparatus of claim 6 , wherein the computer is further programmed to shift the sub-region to a reference origin.
10. A non-transitory computer readable media embodying a computer program, the computer program configured to execute the steps of: accessing a data sinogram representative of the image; reconstructing the image; dividing the image into plurality of sub-regions; defining a region of interest including at least one sub-region; reprojecting the complement of the region of interest to generate a sinogram representative of the complement of the region of interest; identifying an estimated representation of the region of interest; reprojecting the estimated representation of the region of interest to obtain an estimated sinogram; adding the estimated sinogram with the sinogram representative of the complement of the region of interest to obtain a resultant sinogram; comparing the resultant sinogram with the data sinogram to determine if a similarity threshold has been satisfied; and iteratively updating the estimated representation of region of interest if the similarity threshold is not satisfied.
11. The non-transitory computer readable media of claim 10 , wherein the computer program is further configured to divide the image into N×M sub-regions.
12. The non-transitory computer readable media of claim 10 , wherein the computer program is further configured to divide the image into sub-regions comprising square or hexagonal shaped regions.
13. The non-transitory computer readable media of claim 10 , wherein the computer program is further configured to shift the sub-region to a reference origin.
Cooperative Patent Classification codes for this invention. Click any code to explore related patents in that topic.
August 29, 2008
May 22, 2012
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